==Phrack Inc.==
Volume Two, Issue 21, File 11 of 11
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PWN The Legacy... ...Lives On PWN
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Man Charged with "Infecting" Computers May 24, 1988
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Fort Worth, Texas (AP) -- A 39-year-old computer programmer is being prosecuted
on felony charges of infecting his ex-employer's computers with an electronic
"virus," and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Donald Gene Burleson faces a charge of "harmful access to a computer," and is
free on a $3,000 bond pending his July 11 trial.
Police described the electronic interference as a "massive deletion" of more
than 168,000 records of sales commissions for employees.
Burleson is thought to be the first person charged under the state law
prohibiting computer sabotage, which took effect Sept. 1, 1985, about three
weeks before the alleged incident, said Davis McCown, chief of the Tarrant
County district attorney's economic crimes division.
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Jury Selection In First Virus Trial Begins September 6, 1988
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Taken from the Washington Post (September 7, 1988),Page C-1
Fort Worth, Texas (AP) -- Jury selection began today in the criminal trial of a
40-year-old programmer accused of using a computer "virus" to sabotage
thousands of records at his former work place. The trial is expected to last
about two weeks.
Donald G. Burleson faces up to 10 years in jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted
in the trial, a first for the computer industry. Burleson was indicted on
charges of burglary and harmful access to a computer in connection with
computer damage at a securities firm, said Nell Garrison, clerk of the state
criminal district court in Fort Worth. Through his lawyer, Jack Beech,
Burleson denies the charges but has declined further comment.
The firm has been awarded $12,000 in a civil lawsuit against Burleson.
Pretrial motions were scheduled to be heard today, followed by jury selection,
Garrison said.
Burleson is accused of planting a piece of computer software known as a virus
in the computer system at USPA&IRA Co. two days after he was fired. A virus is
a computer program, often hidden in apparently normal computer software, that
instructs the computer to change or destroy information at a given time or
after a certain sequence of commands. USPA officials claim Burleson went into
the company's offices one night and planted a virus in its computer records
that would wipe out sales commissions records every month. The virus was
discovered two days later, after it had eliminated 168,000 records.
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White Lightning Speaks Up July 28, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
White Lightning was apparently previously accused of being an informant for
Sprint Security with regard to information concerning The Disk Jockey and
Compaq.
He left the following message on the Phrack Voice Message System;
"Yeah, this is White Lightning. I'd like to make an official statement for
Phrack Magazine. As far as what happened to The Disk Jockey, Shit, I have no
idea, ok? I get on a bridge, I've been out of it for two weeks, I get on
Friday night, and fuck, this guy Laser outta 206 is saying I got him busted,
I don't know anything about it, ok? As far as Compaq goes, outta 219, Kent,
I'd just appreciate it, your information is messed.. <BEEP!> [The Phrack VMS
has a beep that lets you know that you only have 10 seconds left.] What the
hell is that!? Hello?!? Who is that?!"
Message For White Lightning from Phrack Inc.;
If you would care to explain your side of the story a little more clearly,
we would be happy to listen to what you have to say. We are sure that
everyone would be interested. Thank you.
Information Provided By White Lightning
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AT&T Links Up With GTE August 1, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AT&T is stepping up its efforts to boost revenues from telecommunications gear
by buying GTE's phone switch business. AT&T will become the leading equipment
supplier to GTE's phone companies, which are the main source of the
switch operations $500 million in revenues.
AT&T will take a 49% stake in a new company that will comprise GTE's switch
manufacturing operations in Illinois and a research and development facility in
Phoenix, Arizona. GTE, whose business employs 5,000, is counting on AT&T's
technical expertise to support its base of phone switching systems. It also
wants out of the phone equipment business. AT&T's main task; making the
switches capable of handling the massive voice and computer data transmission
requirements anticipated by GTE's phone companies over the next 15 years.
Neither partner disclosed financial terms of the joint venture. But AT&T will
own 80% of it by 1993 and 100% by 2003. Its management structure is not yet
decided. GTE has made similar moves in recent years that have ended in giving
full management control and ownership to its partners. Such deals include one
with West Germany's Siemens in communication transmission products and a second
with Japan's Fujitsu in office phone systems.
Information Provided by Business Week Magazine
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Is There A Doctor In The House? August 1, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It all started when I met him on a bridge in Texas. No one really understands
why he did it or why he chose that particular handle. He seems to have some
decent knowledge and would not have had much trouble reaching a high level of
notoriety. Unless there is more here than meets the eye.
Doc Holiday/Scott of 713 is an IMPOSTER!
He was doing a pretty good job pretending to be the original Doc Holiday. He
had researched all about him, including details concerning his recent bust for
COSMOS abuse, and created a framing story to explain how and why he now was
Scott instead of Robbie and how his family had moved from Tennessee to Texas.
The majority of the phreak/hack community bought the story and he would have
gone on unseen except for the return of some folks who had disappeared last
fall; Knight Lightning and Taran King. Upon hearing about this Doc Holiday in
713, they already suspected that he was bogus, and once they had spoken to him
they knew it was not the original Doc Holiday. To bring a hilarious end to
this charade they waited until they could contact the original Doc Holiday to
let him in on the exposure.
As destiny would have it, the real Doc Holiday was on vacation and happened to
end up spending a weekend in St. Louis, the weekend right after SummerCon '88.
So the three of them got together started Scott Holiday talking to further
incriminate himself and then let the REAL Doc Holiday introduce himself and
have the last laugh.
Scott Holiday was in shock at first and he tried to explain that he had a good
reason for doing it, but his mom got on the phone and he had to go.
After this incident, I talked to him voice, and he explained to me that he
enjoyed doing this, and it was "the biggest scam" he had ever pulled off,
except that you could argue that he did not really pull it off. Seeing as how
Scott is quite adept at the art of social engineering, he really had little to
no trouble convincing (for lack of a better word) people who did not know the
original Doc Holiday. However when he came up against the best, he failed the
test miserably.
The point of publicizing this incident is to document that people can be easily
fooled and deceit by phone phreaks is not limited to the phone companies. Keep
in mind that people are not necessarily whom they claim and in that lies the
greatest truth of all.
Information Provided By Epsilon
Special thanks to Knight Lightning and Taran King for the exposure.
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Canada Cancels The Underlord August 3, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I still Hack!"
The Underlord awoke on February 11, 1988 at 7:30 AM to the sound of his
doorbell. Moments later, his mother entered his room to inform him that there
were three men waiting to see him. She had a rather puzzled look on her face.
He threw on some clothes and ran downstairs to meet his fate head on. The "fat
man" showed him a search warrant and informed him that he was under arrest for
7 offenses. They confiscated everything.
The Underlord was escorted to their car (his mother followed behind) and driven
off to the police station. They told him something about cameras being all
over the station, but it did not matter to him because, "I wasn't going to kill
the guy or anything anyway." From there he was taken to a little room, in
which he overheard the police playing with my computer, phone, and tapes that
they confiscated.
He had to sit there alone for four hours until his dad drove his home and later
showed his the papers.
"They said I was being charged for four counts of 'theft of telecommunications'
(a real law in Canada), and three counts of mischief."
He was told that the mischief charges were because he called Emergency 911
(although he said he did it through a PBX) and told them obscenities with a
friend on three-way.
Practically six months later, on June 16, 1988, The Underlord finally received
everything back and went to court. He had to pay $750.00 total and serve eight
months probation. However, he only had the three counts of mischief on his
record.
He explained that in Canada, if the government wants to make you pay a fine,
they must prove that you have enough money to pay it first. However, UL did
not and so the authorities said they would drop the charges if he would pay the
$750.00.
Information Provided By The Underlord 416
Through The Phoenix Project
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Teen Hackers Ring Up Huge Phone Bill October 7, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Robert Macy (Associated Press)
Las Vegas, Nevada - Ten teen-age hackers may have run up to $650,000 in
telephone calls by tricking phone company computers, and their parents could be
liable for the tab, authorities said.
Tom Spurlock, resident agent-in-charge of the Las Vegas Secret Service office,
said the teen-agers engaged in Blue Boxing, a technique that enabled them to
talk to fellow hackers throughout Europe.
The teen-agers were not taken into custody or charged, but their computers were
seized. Spurlock said it will be up to AT&T to decide whether to seek
reimbursement once a final tally is obtained.
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Virus Hits Unix at Bell Labs May 13, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friday the 13th, a devastating virus hit Bell Labs at Murray Hill. Initial
reports from survivors indicate that the destruction caused was very
widespread, although limited to Sun workstations. Rumor has it that the virus
was planted by a disgruntled Sun employee in the Sun Unix kernel. The actual
amount of work lost is unknown, as is the Murray Hill policies on frequency of
disk backups.
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Translation Of 2600 Magazine Fall 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following appeared on page 46 of 2600 Magazine, Volume 5, Number 3. It was
in German and I took the liberty of having a friend who is a member of the
Chaos Computer Club in Germany translate it for PWN.
"Hacker" Free Again
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the heads of the Hamburg CCC, S. Wernery, was released from jail in
Paris. The 26-year-old arrived at Hamburg airport yesterday (whenever that
was, there was no date on the article). He stated the accusations against him
were still being investigated. After having been questioned by a judge he was
released from bail, but has to return to Paris at request, though.
:Knight Lightning
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Quicknotes
~~~~~~~~~~
1. BIG! The New Telecom Library Catalog! 1-800-Library. Free, 125 Books, etc.
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2. The Teleconnect Dictionary; A Glossary of Telecom Acronyms, Terms, and
Jargon. Not just definitions...mini essays. $9.95 -- 1-800-LIBRARY.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Microlog Demo Numbers - Microlog, Irvine, California, makes voice response
equipment. Call for demos:
o Microlog (800)562-2822
o Immigration and Naturalization (800)777-7770
o Canadian Embassy (202)785-1431
o Office of Personal Management (202)653-8468
o Australian Consulate (202)797-3161
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4. Most accurate time in the world; (303)499-7111. It's tied to the atomic
clock at the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colorado.
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5. Sue the United States Postal Service? Good Luck.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the US Postal Service loses a package sent by Express Mail, you can't sue
for damages the way you can other delivery services.
Reason: The United States government is immune from lawsuits except when
they consent to being sued. The Postal Service has retained this immunity.
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6. Announcing a new electronic mailbox named Sub-Etha. It is owned and
operated by the Computer Club of Oldenburg, West Germany.
Phone number: (0441/777397) 300 Baud N/8/1
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